30 Facts About Peter Diamandis

Peter H Diamandis is an American engineer, physician, and entrepreneur.

Peter Diamandis is best known as the founder and chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, and the cofounder and executive chairman of Singularity University.

Peter Diamandis is cofounder and former CEO of the Zero Gravity Corporation, cofounder and vice chairman of Space Adventures Ltd.

Peter Diamandis expressed a keen interest in space exploration from a very early age.

At age 12, Peter Diamandis won first place in the Estes Rocket Design Competition for building a launch system able to simultaneously launch three rockets.

Peter Diamandis graduated from MIT in 1983 with degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering.

In 1986, Peter Diamandis put his medical degree on hold and returned to MIT to pursue a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics, conducting research at NASA Johnson Space Center, the MIT Man Vehicle Laboratory and MIT's Whitehead Biomedical Institute.

In 1987, during his third year of medical school, Peter Diamandis cofounded International Space University with Todd Hawley, Walter Anderson, Christopher Mau and Robert Richards.

Peter Diamandis served as the university's managing director and chief operating officer until 1989.

Peter Diamandis cofounded Microsat Launch Systems, later renamed International MicroSpace Inc.

Peter Diamandis joined CTA for one year as VP of Commercial Space Programs post-acquisition.

Peter Diamandis planned to deploy an equatorial ring of 10 satellites to provide communications primarily to Brazil and Indonesia.

Peter Diamandis remained director until 1993, when it was acquired by Angel Technology.

Between 1995 and 1999, Peter Diamandis was the president of Angel Technologies Corporation, a commercial communications company that intended to develop wireless broadband communications networks based on a high-altitude aircraft.

In 1994, Peter Diamandis founded the XPRIZE Foundation after the failure of International MicroSpace, Inc and reading Charles Lindbergh's The Spirit of St Louis.

Peter Diamandis serves as chairman and CEO of the foundation.

The 2015 documentary Visioneer: The Peter Diamandis Story tells the story of the creation of XPRIZE.

In 1994, Diamandis cofounded the Zero Gravity Corporation with Byron K Lichtenberg and Ray Cronise.

Peter Diamandis offered weightless flight experiences aboard its Boeing 727 aircraft, and provided NASA with microgravity flight services for research purposes.

In 1998, Peter Diamandis provided some of the initial funding for the space tourism company Space Adventures.

Peter Diamandis commented on how the initial startup cost for the project was in the region of five million dollars, which was necessary to cover the costs of the servers, bandwidth and software.

Peter Diamandis was the chairman of RRL until it ceased business.

In 2008, with the American author, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis cofounded Singularity University, a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit offering education in futurology.

In February 2018, Peter Diamandis co-founded Celularity, a biotechnology company productizing allogeneic cells and tissues derived from the postpartum placenta, with Robert Hariri.

In 2020, Peter Diamandis co-founded vaccine development company COVAXX with Mei Mei Hu and Lou Reese, as a subsidiary of United Biomedical Inc.

In 2012, with Steven Kotler, Peter Diamandis coauthored Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think.

In 2015, again with Steven Kotler, Peter Diamandis coauthored Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World, which provides analysis and instruction for entrepreneurs interested in learning about exponential technologies, moon-shot thinking, and crowdsourcing.

January 28,2020, Kotler and Peter Diamandis released a third book in the series "The Exponential Mindset Trilogy," which includes Abundance and Bold: The Future is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives, which examines the revolutionary changes brought about by convergence.

In February 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, MIT Technology Review reported that Peter Diamandis held a "mostly maskless" event in Santa Monica in violation of the local stay-at-home order that became a superspreading event where 32 attendees became infected directly or indirectly.

Peter Diamandis proposed to his girlfriend Kristen Hladecek on a Zero Gravity Corporation spaceflight in 2004.